11.18.2005

Before language there was still swearing

I don't know how much to trust a linguistics site unfamiliar with "interjection" (no "Schoolhouse Rock" in England, I'm afraid). Still, "infixes" was new to me. Are swear words really the only ones that get infixed?

2 comments:

TJ said...

Fascinating stuff. I've got no answer to your question, but I'm tempted to say that there's got to be something else that can infixed besides swear words. I just can't think of any.

Either way, that link is a ravatalossa of a find.

kclou said...

I do remember from undergraduate linguistics that swear words are unusual in that they're frequently placed within words (ab-so-fuck-ing-lute-ly is a common example). This is common lingusitics knowledge, or at least that's how I recall it. I remember it as being unusual and not exclusive, but I may remember poorly...